COMPIÉGNE AND ITS FOREST

One of the most talked of and the least visited of the minor French palaces is that of Compiègne. The archeologists coming to Compiègne first notice that all its churches are "malorientées." It is a minor point with most folk, but when one notes that its five churches have their high altars turned to all points of the compass, instead of to the east, it is assuredly a fact to be noticed, even if one is more romantically inclined than devout.

Through and through, Compiègne, its palace, its hotel-de-ville, its forest, is delightful. Old and new huddle close together, and the art nouveau decorations of a branch of a great Parisian department store flank a butcher's stall which looks as though it might have come down from the times when all trading was done in the open air.

Compiègne's origin goes back to the antique. It was originally Compendium, a Roman station situated on the highway between Soissons and Beauvais. A square tower, Cæsar's Tower, gave a military aspect to the walled and fortified station, and evidences are not wanting to-day to suggest with what strength its fortifications were endowed.

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It was here that the first Frankish kings built their dwelling, and here that Pepin-le-Bref received the gracious gift of an organ from the Emperor Constantine, and here, in 833, that an assembly of bishops and nobles deposed Louis-le-Débonnaire.

Charles-le-Chauve received Pope Jean VIII in great pomp in the palace at Compiègne, and it was this Pope who gave absolution to Louis-le-Begue, who died here but a year after, 879. The last of the Carlovingians, Louis V (le-Faineant), died also at Compiègne in 987.

The city is thus shown to have been a favourite place of sojourn for the kings of the Franks, and those of the first and second races. As was but obvious many churchly councils were held here, fourteen were recorded in five centuries, but none of great ecclesiastical or civil purport.

The city first got its charter in 1153, but the Merovingian city having fallen into a sort of galloping decay Saint Louis gave it to the Dominicans in 1260, who here founded, by the orders of the king, a Hotel Dieu which, in part, is the same edifice which performs its original functions to-day.

The first great love of Compiègne was expressed by Charles V, who rebuilt the palace of Charles-le-Chauve in a manner which was far from making it a monumental or artistically disposed edifice. It was originally called the Louvre, from the Latin word opus (l'œuvre), a word which was applied to all the chateaux-forts of these parts. The same monarch did better with the country-houses which he afterwards built at Saint Germain and Vincennes; perhaps by this time he had grown wise in his dealings with architects.

Like all the little towns of the Valois, Compiègne abounds in souvenirs of the Guerre de Cent Ans, Jeanne d'Arc, Louis XIV, Louis XV, Napoleon I and Napoleon III, and as its monuments attest this glory, so its forest, one of the finest in France, awakens almost as many historical memories.

Wars and rumors of war kept Compiègne in a turmoil for centuries, but the most theatrical episode was the famous "sortie" made by Jeanne d'Arc when she was attempting to defend the city against the combined English and Burgundian troops. It was an episode in which faint heart, perhaps treason, played an unwelcome part, for while the gallant maid was taking all manner of chances outside the gates the military governor, Guillaume de Flavy, ordered the barriers of the great portal closed behind her and her men.

Near the end of the Pont de Saint Louis Jeanne d'Arc fell into the hands of the besiegers. An archer from Picardy captured her single handed, and, for a round sum in silver or in kind, turned her over to her torturer, Jean de Luxembourg. A statue of the maid is found on the public "Place," and the Tour Jeanne d'Arc, a great circular donjon of the thirteenth century, is near by. Another souvenir is to be found in the ancient Hotel de Bœuf, at No. 9 Rue de Paris, where the maid lodged from the eighteenth to the twenty-third of August, 1429, awaiting the entry of Charles VII.

With the era of Francis I that gallant and fastidious monarch came to take up his residence at Compiègne. He here received his "friend and enemy," Charles V, but strangely enough there is no monument in Compiègne to-day which is intimately associated with the stay here of the art-loving Francis. He preferred, after all, his royal manor at Villers-Cotterets near by. There was more privacy there, and it formed an admirable retreat for such moments when the king did not wish to bask in publicity, and these moments were many, though one might not at first think so when reading of his affairs of state. There were also affairs of the heart which, to him, in many instances, were quite as important. This should not be forgotten.

In 1624 a treaty was signed at Compiègne which assured the alliance of Louis XIII with the United Provinces, and during this reign the court was frequently in residence here. In 1631 Marie de Médici, then a prisoner in the palace, made a notable escape and fled, doomed ever afterwards to a vagabond existence, a terrible fall for her once proud glory, to her death in a Cologne garret ten years later.

In 1635 the Grand Chancellor of Sweden signed a treaty here which enabled France to mingle in the affairs of the Thirty Years' War.

During the Fronde, that "Woman's War," which was so entirely unnecessary, Anne d'Autriche held her court in the Palace of Compiègne and received Christine de Suede on certain occasions when that royal lady's costume was of such a grotesque nature, and her speech so chevaleresque, that she caused even a scandal in a profligate court. Anne d'Autriche, too, left Compiègne practically a prisoner; another ménage à trois had been broken up.

The most imposing event in the history of Compiègne of which the chronicles tell was the assembling of sixty thousand men beneath the walls by Louis XIV, in order to give Madame de Maintenon a realistic exhibition of "playing soldiers." At all events the demonstration was a bloodless one, and an immortal page in Saint-Simon's "Memoires" consecrates this gallantry of a king in a most subtle manner.

Another fair lady, a royal favourite, too, came on the scene at Compiègne in 1769 when Madame du Barry was the principal artiste in the great fête given in her honour by Louis XV. She was lodged in a tiny chateau (built originally for Madame de Pompadour) a short way out of town on the Soissons road.

Du Barry must have been a good fairy to Compiègne for Louis XV lavished an abounding care on the chateau and, rather than allow the architect, Jacques Ange Gabriel, have the free hand that his counsellors advised, sought to have the ancient outlines of the former structure on the site preserved and thus present to posterity through the newer work the two monumental façades which are to be seen to-day. The effort was not wholly successful, for the architect actually did carry out his fancy with respect to the decoration in the same manner in which he had designed the École Militaire at Paris and the two colonnaded edifices facing upon the Place de la Concorde.

This work was entirely achieved when Louis XVI took possession. This monarch, in 1780, caused to be fitted up a most elaborate apartment for the queen (his marriage with Marie Antoinette was consecrated here), but that indeed was all the hand he had in the work of building at Compiègne, which has practically endured as his predecessor left it. The Revolution and Consulate used the chateau as their fancy willed, and rather harshly, but in 1806 its restoration was begun and Charles IV of Spain, upon his dethronement by Napoleon, was installed therein a couple of years later.

The palace, the park and the forest now became a sort of royal appanage of this Spanish monarch, which Napoleon, in a generous spirit, could well afford to will him. He lived here some months and then left precipitately for Marseilles.

Napoleon affected a certain regard for this palatial property, though only occupying it at odd moments. He embellished its surroundings, above all its gardens, in a most lavish manner. Virtually, all things considered, Compiègne is a Palais Napoleonien, and if one would study the style of the Empire at its best the thing may be done at Compiègne.

On July 30, 1814, Louis XVIII and Alexander of Russia met at Compiègne amid a throng of Paris notabilities who had come thither for the occasion.

Charles X loved to hunt in the forest of Compiègne. In 1832, one of the daughters of Louis-Philippe, the Princesse Louise, was married to the King of the Belgians in this palace.

From 1852 to 1870 the palace and its grounds were the scenes of many imperial fêtes.

Napoleon III had for Compiègne a particular predilection. The prince-president, in 1852, installed himself here for the autumn season, and among his guests was that exquisite blond beauty, Eugenie Montijo, who, the year after, was to become the empress of the French. Faithful to the memory of his uncle, by reason of a romantic sentiment, the Third Napoleon came frequently to Compiègne; or perhaps it was because of the near-by hunt, for he was a passionate disciple of Saint Hubert. It was his Versailles!

The palace of Compiègne as seen to-day presents all the classic coldness of construction of the reign of Louis XV. Its lines were severe and that the building was inspired by a genius is hard to believe, though in general it is undeniably impressive. Frankly, it is a mocking, decadent eighteenth century architecture that presents itself, but of such vast proportions that one sets it down as something grand if not actually of surpassing good taste.

In general the architecture of the palace presents at first glance a coherent unit, though in reality it is of several epochs. Its furnishings within are of different styles and periods, not all of them of the best. Slender gold chairs, false reproductions of those of the time of Louis XV, and some deplorable tapestries huddle close upon elegant "bergères" of Louis XVI, and sofas, tables and bronzes of master artists and craftsmen are mingled with cheap castings unworthy of a stage setting in a music hall. A process of adroit eviction will some day be necessary to bring these furnishings up to a consistent plane of excellence.

One of the façades is nearly six hundred feet in length, with forty-nine windows stretching out in a single range. It might be the front of an automobile factory if it were less ornate, or that of an exposition building were it more beautiful. In some respects it is reminiscent of the Palais Royal at Paris, particularly as to the entrance colonnade and gallery facing the Louvre.

The chief beauty within is undoubtedly the magnificent stairway, with its balustrade of wrought iron of the period of Louis XVI. The Salle de Spectacle is of a certain Third Empire-Louis Napoleon distinction, which is saying that it is neither very lovely nor particularly plain, simply ordinary, or, to give it a French turn of phrase, vulgar.

One of the most remarkable apartments is the Salle des Cartes, the old salon of the Aides de Camp, whose walls are ornamented with three great plans showing the roads and by-paths of the forest, and other decorative panels representing the hunt of the time of Louis XV.

Napoleon's Bedchamber, Compiègne

The Chambre à Coucher of the great Napoleon is perhaps the most interesting of all the smaller apartments, with its strange bed, which in form more nearly resembles an oriental divan than anything European. Doubtless it is not uncomfortable as a bed, but it looks more like a tent, or camp, in the open, than anything essentially intended for domestic use within doors. After the great Napoleon, his nephew Napoleon III was its most notable occupant, though it was last slept in by the Tzar Nicholas II, when he visited France in 1901.

The sleeping-room of the Empress Eugenie is fitted up after the style of the early Empire with certain interpolations of the mid-nineteenth century. The most distinct feature here is the battery of linen coffers which Marie Louise had had especially designed and built. The Salon des Dames d'Honneur, with its double rank of nine "scissors chairs," the famous tabourets de cour, lined up rigidly before the canapé on which the empress rested, is certainly a remarkable apartment. This was the decor of convention that Madame Sans Gene rendered classic.

Like all the French national palaces Compiègne has a too abundant collection of Sevres vases set about in awkward corners which could not otherwise be filled, and, beginning with the vestibule, this thing is painfully apparent.

The apartments showing best the Napoleonic style in decorations and furnishings are the Salon des Huissiers, the Salle des Gardes, the Escalier d'Apollon, the Salle de Don Quichotte—which contains a series of designs destined to have served for a series of tapestries intended to depict scenes in the life of the windmill knight—the Galerie des Fêtes, the Galerie des Cerfs, the Salle Coypel, the Salle des Stucs and the Salon des Fleurs, through which latter one approaches the royal apartments.

In the sixteenth century, or, more exactly, between 1502 and 1510, was constructed Compiègne's handsome Hotel de Ville, one of the most delightful architectural mixtures of Gothic and Renaissance extant. It is an architectural monument of the same class as the Palais de Justice at Rouen or the Hotel Cluny at Paris. Its frontispiece is marvellous, the rez-de-chaussée less gracious than the rest perhaps, but with the first story blooming forth as a gem of magnificent proportions and setting. Between the four windows of this first story are posed statuesque effigies of Charles VII, Jeanne d'Arc, Saint Rémy and Louis IX. In the centre, in a niche, is an equestrian statue of Louis XII, who reigned when this monument was being built. A balustrade à jour finishes off this story, which, in turn, is overhung with a high, peaked gable, and above rise the belfry and its spire, of which the great clock dates from 1303, though only put into place in 1536. The only false note is sounded by the two insignificant, cold and unlovely wings which flank the main structure on either side.

It is a sixteenth century construction unrivalled of its kind in all France, more like a Belgian town-hall belfry than anything elsewhere to be seen outside Flanders, but it is not of the low Spanish-Renaissance order as are so many of the imposing edifices of occidental and oriental Flanders. It is a blend of Gothic and Renaissance, and, what is still more rare, the best of Gothic and the best of Renaissance. Above its façade is a civic belfry, flanked by two slender towers. Within the portal-vestibule rises a monumental stairway which must have been the inspiration of many a builder of modern opera-houses.

Opposite the Hotel Dieu is the poor, rent relic of the Tour de Jeanne d'Arc, originally a cylindrical donjon of the twelfth century, wherein "La Pucelle" was imprisoned in 1430.

Between the palace and the river are to be seen many vestiges of the mediæval ramparts of the town, and here and there a well-defined base of a gateway or tower. Mediævalism is rampant throughout Compiègne.

The park surrounding the palace is quite distinct from the wider radius of the Fôret de Compiègne. It is of the secular, conventional order, and its perspectives, looking towards the forest from the terrace and vice versa, are in all ways satisfying to the eye.

One of the most striking of these alleyed vistas was laid out under the orders of the first Napoleon in 1810. It loses itself in infinity, almost, its horizon blending with that of the far distant Beaux Monts in the heart of the forest.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the palace are innumerable statues, none of great beauty, value or distinction. On the south side runs a Cours, or Prado, as it would be called in Catalonia. The word Cours is of Provençal origin, and how it ever came to be transplanted here is a mystery. Still here it is, a great tree-shaded promenade running to the river. The climate of Compiègne is never so blazing hot as to make this Cours so highly appreciated as its namesakes in the Midi, but as an exotic accessory to the park it is quite a unique delight.

Within the park may still be traced the outlines of the moat which surrounded the palace of Charles V, as well as some scanty remains of the same period.

Cours de Compiègne

Another distinctive feature is the famous Berceau en Fer, an iron trellis several thousands of feet in length, which was built by Napoleon I as a reminder to Marie Louise of a similar, but smaller, garden accessory which she had known at Schoenbrunn. It was a caprice, if you like, and rather a futile one since it was before the time when artistically worthless things were the rage just because of their gigantic proportions. Napoleon III cut it down in part, and pruned it to more esthetic proportions, and what there is left, vine and flower grown, is really charming.

The Forêt de Compiègne as a historic wildwood goes back to the Druids who practiced their mysterious rites under its antique shade centuries before the coming of the kings, who later called it their own special hunting preserve. Stone hatchets, not unlike the tomahawks of the red man, have been found and traced back—well, definitely to the Stone Age, and supposedly to the time when they served the Druids for their sacrifices.

The soldiers of Cæsar came later and their axes were of iron or copper, and though on the warpath, too, their way was one which was supposed to lead civilization into the wilderness. Innumerable traces of the Roman occupation are to be found in the forest by those who know how to read the signs; twenty-five different localities have been marked down by the archeologists as having been stations on the path blazed by the Legions of Rome.

After the Romans came the first of the kings as proprietors of the forest, and in the moyen-age the monks, the barons and the crown itself shared equally the rights of the forest.

Legends of most weird purport are connected with various points scattered here and there throughout the forest, as at the Fosse Dupuis and the Table Ronde, where a sort of "trial by fire" was held by the barons whenever a seigneur among them had conspired against another. Ariosto, gathering many of his legends from the works of the old French chroniclers, did not disdain to make use of the Forêt de Compiègne as a stage setting.

During the reign of Clothaire the forest was known as the Forêt de Cuise, because of a royal palace hidden away among the Druid oaks which bore the name of Cotia, or Cusia. Until 1346 the palace existed in some form or other, though shorn of royal dignities. It was at this period that Philippe VI divided the forests of the Valois into three distinct parts in order to better regulate their exploitation.

The Frankish kings being, it would seem, inordinately fond of la chasse the Forêt de Compiègne, in the spring and autumn, became their favorite rendezvous. Alcuin, the historian, noted this fact in the eighth century, and described this earliest of royal hunts in some detail. In 715 the forest was the witness of a great battle between the Austrasians and the Neustrians.

Before Francis I with his habitual initiative had pierced the eight great forest roads which come together at the octagon called the Puits du Roi, the forest was not crossed by any thoroughfare; the nearest thing thereto was the Chaussée de Brunhaut, a Roman way which bounded it on the south and east.

Louis XIV and Louis XV, in turn, cut numerous roads and paths, and to the latter were due the crossroads known as the Grand Octagone and the Petit Octagone.

It was over one of these great forest roads, that leading to Soissons, that Marie Louise, accompanied by a cortège of three hundred persons, eighty conveyances and four hundred and fifty horses, journeyed in a torrential rain, in March 1807, when she came to France to found a dynasty.

A marriage had been consummated by procuration at Vienna, and she set out to actually meet her future spouse for the first time at Soissons. At the little village of Courcelles, on the edge of the forest between Soissons and Compiègne, two men enveloped in great protecting cloaks had arrived post-haste from Compiègne. At the parish church they stopped a moment and took shelter under the porch, impatiently scanning the horizon. Finally a lumbering berlin de voyage lurched into view, drawn by eight white horses. In its depths were ensconced two women richly dressed, one a beautiful woman of mature years, the other a young girl scarce eighteen years.

The most agitated of the men, he who was clad in a gray redingote, sprang hastily to the carriage door. He was introduced by the older woman as "Sa Majesté l'Empereur des Françaises, mon frere." The speaker was one of the sisters of Napoleon, Caroline, Queen of Naples; the other was the Archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of Franz II, Emperor of Austria.

An imposing ceremonial had been planned for Soissons and the court had been ordered to set out from Compiègne with the emperor, in order to arrive at Soissons in due time. When the actual signal for the departure was given the emperor was nowhere to be found. As usual he had anticipated things.

For weeks before the arrival of the empress to be Napoleon had passed the majority of his waking hours at Paris in the apartments which he had caused to be prepared for Marie Louise. He selected the colour of the furnishings, and superintended the very placing of the furniture. Among other things he had planned a boudoir which alone represented an expenditure of nearly half a million francs.

Lejeune, who had accompanied Maréchal Berthier to Vienna to arrange the marriage, had returned and given his imperial master a glowing description of the charms of the young archduchess who was to be his bride. The emperor compared his ideal with her effigy on medals and miniatures and then worked even more ardently than before that her apartments should be worthy of her when she arrived.

It was just following upon this fever of excitement that Napoleon and the court had repaired to Compiègne. So restless was the emperor that he could hardly bide the time when the archduchess should arrive, and it was thus that he set out with Murat to meet the approaching cortège.

The pavilion which had been erected for the meeting was left to the citizens of the neighbourhood, and the marvellous banquet which had been prepared by Bausset was likewise abandoned. Napoleon had no time to think of dining.

All the roadside villages between Soissons and Compiègne were hung with banners, and the populace appeared to be as highly excited as the contracting parties. It still rained a deluge, but this made no difference. Two couriers at full gallop came first to Compiègne, crying: "Place": "Place": The eight white horses and the berlin de voyage followed. Before one had hardly time to realize what was passing, Napoleon and his bride whisked by in a twinkling.

At nine o'clock an outpost in the park at Compiègne announced the arrival of the emperor and his train. At ten o'clock a cannon shot rang out over the park and the emperor and empress passed into the chateau to proceed with certain indispensable presentations; then to souper, a petite souper intime, we are assured.

On the morrow all the world of the assembled court met the empress and avowed that she had that specious beauté du diable which has ever pleased the French connoisseur of beautiful women. They went further, however, and stated that in spite of this ravishing beauty she lacked the elegance which should be the possession of an empress of the French. The faithful Berthier silenced them with the obvious statement that since she pleased the emperor there was nothing more to be said, or thought.

Flying northward on the great highroad leading out from Paris to Chantilly and Compiègne gadabout travellers have never a thought that just beyond Pont Saint Maxence, almost in plain view from the doorway of the Inn of the Lion d'Argent of that sleepy little town, is a gabled wall which represents all that remains of the "Maison de Philippe de Beaumanoir," called the Cour Basse.

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